Tuesday, March 8, 2011

HAWKISH LINE ON NORTH KOREA

A hawkish line on North KoreaDespite a concerted international effort since the start of the year to sootheheightened tensions on the Korean peninsula, the South Korean government isbracing for a different type of aggravation from Pyongyang: terrorism, perhaps.Nothing is certain, of course. But if these fears were to be justified, it wouldreopen one of the darkest chapters in the fratricidal north-south relationship sincethe 1950-53 Korean war.Mr Lee’s determination to launch a disproportionately strong response in theevent of another North Korean attack (like the one on Yeongpyeong island inNovember) was no empty threat. “This is the best way to keep the peace andavoid war,” he said.North Korea has already caught South Korea’s message and because of this it willnot choose to make any aggression in the daytime or in the open space thateveryone knows the source of. South Korea is looking at many other possibilities,such as terrorism and other kinds of provocations, other than military means.Elsewhere in the government people speculate that such shadowy threats couldinclude assassinations or the use of biological warfare.The tone in Seoul, when it comes discussing the dangers from North Korea,remains strikingly hawkish, not least because many fear that the successionbetween Kim Jong Il and his son and heir, Kim Jong Un, is not yet consolidated.The youngster may need to perform more acts of belligerence to shore up hiscredibility in the eyes of the trigger-happy army. What’s more, higher food pricesmay make the internal situation in the penniless North even more fragile, notleast if China has to go easy on the handouts it provides to its allies in Pyongyangin order to preserve its own foodstocks.It was no comfort that North Korea pulled out of military-to-military talks with thesouth on February 9th , even though, as one official put it, weeks before it hadbeen engaged in “peace offensives” with all-and-sundry. The stumbling point wasNorth Korea’s refusal to discuss the sinking last March of the Cheonan, whichSouth Korea and many of its allies blame on the North. It is not surprisingPyongyang finds that a big hurdle, because it denies torpedoing the Cheonan. Butit can hardly have expected South Korea, which lost 46 men as a result of itssinking, to shrug it off.Some are hoping that the North will return to military-to-military talks afterSouth Korea and the United States hold 11 days of joint military operations dueto start on February 28th. But if not, South Korea will be on heightened alert. If itis terrorism they are worried about, North Korea has form. In 1987 a Korean Airflight from Baghdad to Seoul was bombed by two agents apparently acting onorders from “Dear Leader” Kim, with a resulting loss of 115 lives. In 1983 NorthKorean agents attempted to assassinate South Korea's then-president while hewas visiting Myanmar. (They missed their mark, but killed 21 other people andlost the hermit kingdom its welcome in Myanmar.) Since those dark days thethreat seemed to recede and in 2008 George Bush’s administration removedNorth Korea from Washington’s list of states reckoned to sponsor terrorism.These new rumblings from Seoul would seem to push in a different direction.